AvA. What does that mean? What do I do?
'War Has Errupted in Westeros, you are needed!' Call The Banners War is upon us yet again and now every man and women must bear arms. From merchants to swordsmen, from noblest politician to even the most humble stable hand. Everyone is equal in times of war and everyone has their bit to play. It does not matter how strong you are nor how old you are, or even how experienced you are, the Alliance needs you, the Alliance needs everyone. What is actually happening during AvA? AvA is the phase where Alliances declare open conflict between themselves and their Alliance enemies. In Player to Player conflict you are targetting a specific player, individually. In Alliance versus Alliance, you are not fighting a individual, but rather an Alliance as a whole. It is the period in the game where you work as a team, and prove your individual worth, in building, defending, attacking and co-ordinating yourself effectively. All of these aspects are condusive in a successful result in AvA. (which can last a number of weeks). Camps. ''' Before AvA phase, camps are set up in your region by your alliance, they are the platforms built during the World Event phase. Camps are where you can launch offenses against enemy camps, or provide assistance to allied camp. Aside from giving you a place on the battlefield, they also provide you with certain bonuses depending on the level of the camp. The structure and strength of your camp can be viewed by clicking the '''STATS tab in the particular camp you are in. The stats will tell you what strength you have in Battle, Intrigue and Trade both offensively and defensively. Before you enter a camp, you should understand, or at least have some basic knowledge of the realm geographically. There are three places in each region that your Alliance can build a camp. Each region has a different landscape to represent that specific area. (More on why the *spoils are important later, but right now, let's get you to understand your way around the camp.) You can enter a camp by clicking the GARRISON button, and then selecting the Sworn Sword you want in the camp.Your Sworn Sword will now be passively defending attacks from other Alliances that correspond to that Sworn Sword's speciality of best talents. For example: A Protector will defend against any random '''AID attacks '''on the camp. However, the Sworn Sword will only attack when ordered to do so. Before doing anything, get to understand the camp that you are in thouroughly before doing any offensive action, regardless of whether it is attacking or aiding an Alliance. Again look at the' STATS', which will provide you with the information on how strong the camp is. It will show you the offensive and defensive strengths in Battle/Trade/Intrigue as well as how much percentage your camp is in BRIBE offense and defense. ACTION will provide you with information on the most recent activity in the camp so far. This will tell you what attacks/aids your fellow bannermen have been doing, as well as what attacks and aids other alliances have been doing which target that particular camp. PROVISIONS will tell you informaiton on who has been giving resources and silver to upgrade or repair the camp. Westeros, as well as the surrounding lands are divided into eight provinces. The North, The Iron Islands, The Riverlands, The Stormlands, Westerlands, The Reach, The Crownlands and The Dorne. Now that you have garrisoned a Sworn Sword in a camp, you can only attack camps within that region. So, I have garrisoned a spy in The Neck, in The North, I can only attack camps in The North. Which are Alliances with camps in The Neck, Torrhen's Square and White Knife. Each Region has three locations that an Alliance can build a Camp in. (Scroll over to see). Most camps are generally situated around their fealty. So as our Alliance has sworn fealty to House Stark most of our camps are situated in the North. However, we do have camps all over Westeros, but the hive of activity is mainly in the Nothern Camps. So now let's get back to the camp. Actions So now that you have a grasp over the geography, you have basically got the hardwork out of the way, and now you can understand where your aid/attacks are going, and you can understand why you can't attack certain camps if you are in another camp sitting on the other side of Westeros. Fantastic, so now that the theory is out the way, let's get stuck in. Now before you start, remember that there are friendly and non-friendly actions you can perform on other Alliances. If it is your first time in AvA, I would advise you to only perform friendly aids to camps. Like AIDING in the Battle Talents or BARTER in Trading, but for now we will start with a neutral action. Spying One of the most effective attacks you can do for your Alliance is scouting. When successful it reveals cruicial information of other Alliances camps. It reveals the Level of the camp, who is in the camp and what the camp's strength is. This allows your Alliance to prepare for attacks with better knowledge on what kind of defense they wil encounter if they do plan an attack In this example I am merely doing it because spying isn't really regarded as an offensive attack, and it wouldn't be considered a blatant attack, but a bit of advice... ...don't get caught . Camps are invisible to other Alliances by default, and other Alliance members must successfully perform a Spy action on an enemy/ally camp to see if there is a camp there firstly, then you will also gain information on the what level the camp is, how many are garrisoned there and what sort of camp spoils it requires. Spy info does not update and therefor you will need to constantly spy on camps in order to constantly see their progress and damage. If you perform an unsuccessfull SPY action, YOUR camp's status will be revealed to the enemy. Bribing Bribing is still one of the most misunderstood actions in AvA, because it is often imsinterpreted as an aggressive action, and often a negative retaliation is made in reponse to a successful bribe. Bribing is the most effective way to speed up the upgrade of your Ally's camp and your own. As you might have worked out, the Bribe action in PtP removes the fault occured on a player caused from a Sobotage action. In AvA things are very different and as soon as you understand that actions in AvA affect the Alliance, and not yourself, you will then understand how the actions work, and how the work effectively. "All of us dead, all of us rotting, in the ground. It's the family name that lives on, it's all that lives on, not your personal glory, not your honour, but your family ." As I have successfully sent out a SPY to see our ally's camp, I have now prepared my Traders to perform a Bribe action to their camp at their camp in The Neck. As I need spoils to upgrade my camp in the Neck and possibly speed up it's upgrade it is important I send my TRADERS (performing BRIBE) in the most effective way I can.